Hello. I'm your host, Jennifer Matterese, and welcome to disaster area.

Episode 3, the SS Eastland disaster. July 24, 1915. 844 deceased, hundreds injured. Life is hell, a partial quote from an unsent

love letter found on a dead girl retrieved from the wreckage of the Eastland, the last minute

of it, a policeman in response to this quote, reading the letter on the wharf after it was

retrieved. Harpo Studios is haunted. Now, people who worked in the building which housed Oprah Winfrey's

Chicago studio told stories of hearing ghostly sounds, children laughing, turn-of-the-century

music, phantom cries for help.

There was even security camera video of a ghost seen in the halls of Harper Studios, called The Grey Lady,

a woman wearing this sort of long dress and wide-brimmed hat popular in the early 1900s.

Whether or not you believe in ghosts, the source of these stories

becomes clear when you know the history of the building. Prior to its time as a television

studio, the building was the second regiment armory, and in July of 1915, it served as an emergency

morgue for one of the worst tragedies in American history.

Now the SS Eastland was a ship that was known for its speed. It was called the Speed Queen

of the Great Lakes. It was commissioned in 1902 by the Michigan Steamship Company and built

by the Jenks Shipbuilding Company of Port Huron, Michigan. It was its first

passenger steamer, and it turned out its last, and Sidney Jenks, who was the president of the

company, would be quoted later on at trial, saying that he and the company had no way of knowing

the quantity of its

business after it left our yards in regards to the ship it really didn't know according to him

they didn't really know what the ship was going to be used for after it was taken away

and they kind of didn't care the first owners wanted a fast ship to transport fruit,

...